The Weekly Newspaper of Torrance Herald Publications - Torrance, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 6, No. 4 - January 21, 2016 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................7 Classifieds............................4 Crossword/Sudoku.............4 Film Review..........................4 Legals.................................6,8 Police Reports.....................2 Real Estate...........................8 Sports....................................6 TerriAnn in Torrance..........3 Weekend Forecast Assisteens® Honor Class of 2016 Top Row Left to Right: Jessica Hay, Katie Shewfelt, Tiffany Sato, Serena Tramm, Victoria Marquez, Christine O’Connell, Reiko Kato, Cheyenne Newallis. Bottom Row Left to Right: Stephanie Grant, Vania Betancourt, Amanda Lee, Emma Tsuneishi, Lindsey Falkenstein, Ada Day. Not pictured: Neeki Rizi. The Assisteens® of San Pedro-South Bay is proud to introduce their Senior Class of 2016. These 15 beautiful and extremely accomplished young women have volunteered in our community for the past 4-5 years achieving an excess of 9,640 hours for local philanthropies, such as; Ride To Fly, Torrance Memorial Hospital, Little Company of Mary Hospital, Norris Theater, Armstrong Theater, Pediatric Therapy Network, Operation School Bell, Press Friends as well as many other committee organizations and events. These young women will be formally recognized for their community contributions at their Senior Recognition Ball, which will be held in March at the beautiful and historic Millennium Biltmore. Photo by Katherine O’Connell. • Friday Mostly Cloudy 66˚/53˚ Saturday AM Showers 60˚/50˚ Sunday Partly Cloudy 62˚/48 ˚ Board Members Say Yes To Hands-On Pilot Program at Towers Elementary By Cristian Vasquez Members of the Torrance School Board unanimously approved a request for Towers Elementary School to pilot a Makerspace program, which is tailored to provide students with hands-on learning in a safe, collaborative environment for open-ended creativity and problem solving. “One way that schools are trying to help their students learn more about STEM focus and careers is to have parent volunteers or docents come in, get some training and professional development and actually lead, typically during lunch time, several students may work on a project,” Senior Director Elementary Schools Dr. E. Don Kim said. The program is designed to prepare students for future science- and technology-based curricula, as well as related career opportunities that become available as a result of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math [STEM] education. Through the Makerspace program it is expected that students will be able to build on STEM skills, as well as their language math skills. The pilot program will begin with formal safety instructions, provided by parent volunteers. Instruction and workspace for the program will be located in the campus computer lab before and after school, as well as during lunchtime. For its beginning phase, the program will be only be offered to fourth-grade students that demonstrate interest. However, the program will expand to additional grades based on things like volunteer availability and the popularity of the program. “They didn’t feel that they could start with a large group of students so they decided to focus specifically on fourth grade students this year,” Dr. Kim said. “They hope to increase the program and include other students in later years if this goes well.” The project will engage students in a wide range of supervised, hands-on activities that will immerse children in STEM activities. While the pilot program is not based on a full curriculum, it is modeled on lessons and guidelines that parents can learn and help students accomplish. All adult volunteers will be fingerprinted, TB-tested, and receive Megan’s Database clearance. Magruder Middle School To Enter Contract With “Fast ForWord” The Torrance School Board approved a request to enter an agreement with independent contractor, Scientific Learning, to provide webbased supplemental reading support program “Fast ForWord” to Magruder Middle School for one calendar year. “The ‘Fast ForWord’ program is a web-based reading intervention program that targets foundational phonemic awareness, language, memory, attention, processing and sequencing skills,” states the school board agenda. “’Fast ForWord’ will assist teachers with assessing reading fluency and comprehension as well as assess and track the progress of targeted students.” Scientific Learning is also scheduled to provide product training, as well as support to Magruder Middle School faculty and staff for the entirety of the contract. Fast ForWord is based on cognitive programs that “build foundational working memory, attention, processing and sequencing skills using adaptive exercises that add speed and complexity at the student’s own pace.” Most of the program’s students move to a reading program to build reading fluency, spelling and comprehension skills within one to three months of the program beginning. Each Fast ForWord program, 10 in total, has five to seven games made up of a different mix of cognitive and/or reading skill targets. Board Approves, Ratifies Middle School Program “Women in STEM” Approved and ratified by the school board, the program “Women in STEM” is an effort to inspire and encourage young women to enter Science, Technology, Engineering and Math [STEM] careers. The Torrance Unified School District and the Center for Math and Science Teaching [CMAST] is partnering with successful female STEM professionals to form “Women in STEM.” “These professional women will lead selected female middle school students in a ‘zombie themed, five-part program geared towards creating an understanding on how professionals use STEM,” states the board agenda. There will be one session a month, two hour sessions from 4-6 p.m., and will provide general information on the scheduled topic, and engage students with projects and field experience. The program kicked off with a neuroscience discussion on Jan. 12 with Emily Noble. The remaining four topics and speakers include, Engineering/Physics on Feb. 9 with Alison Brown, Environmental/Engineering on March 8 with Melissa Henry, Biology/Museum on April 12 with Sara Haft, and End of Program Party on May 10 with all of the presenters. The sessions will be hosted at Levy Adult Center. All expenses for materials will be funded by the CMAST program and any other related costs will be funded through Educational Services (Secondary) budget, not to exceed $500. •
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